Like a Dream

Amen. Please turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 29. We will continue looking at the book of Isaiah.

This section, once again, being a section that talks about the folly of trusting the nations, particularly at this point in Israel's history.

They had trusted in Assyria. Assyria has turned on them and their alliance. And now they are going to Egypt for help, to look for help from Egypt, to deliver them from Assyria.

But the Lord is consistent in His message that they should trust in Him alone. They shouldn't trust in Assyria. They shouldn't trust in Egypt.

They should trust only in Him. And likewise, we should trust only in the Lord. We should not trust in anything else.

We should not trust in anyone else, any other power. We should trust only in the Lord. Let me go ahead and read

Isaiah 29, verses 5 through 8. But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff.

And in an instant, suddenly, you'll be visited by the Lord of hosts, with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with whirlwind, and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.

And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, all that fight against her, and her stronghold, and distress her, shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.

As when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he is eating, and he awakes with his hunger not satisfied.

Or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he is drinking, and awakes faint with his thirst not quenched.

So shall the multitude of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion. Amen. Let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the confidence it gives us. We thank you for the assurances it gives us of your mercy, of your greatness, of your power.

We thank you for it answering our difficult questions, it giving us just wonderful guidance and wisdom from on high that would not be ours apart from your great mercy in giving us your word.

We thank you for that, and we ask you that your word would lead us this very day. In Jesus' name, amen.

So there are some texts of Scripture that I find immensely helpful for explaining certain things.

You know, maybe you have something like that where if someone asks you about the deity of Christ, or someone asks you about works and salvation, how they relate, maybe you immediately think of John 1, 1, or you immediately think of Ephesians 2, 8, and 9.

This is a passage that I immediately think about when people ask me a particular question.

That question is, will we remember this life on earth? There's the question of, there is so much here that I find traumatic.

There is so much here that is evil, and I don't want to remember. I can't imagine living a blessed existence forever, remembering all the stuff that I have experienced here.

How can that be? I believe the Scripture provides a very excellent answer to how believers should consider their affliction now, and what the difference will be then.

When we experience affliction now, it feels very real. Then, it will feel like a dream.

Like a dream. God will take our affliction away in such a way that it will not be traumatic, in such a way that his power will be made known in salvation, so that we will be able to remember all that we've experienced, appreciate what he has accomplished in salvation, and yet not be traumatized by it because his salvation is that powerful.

That both his work can be remembered, and yet at the same time, save us entirely from the evil that we face here in this world.

So here, in this section, we had just read Isaiah 29, 1 through 4 last week, and looked at this, and began, ah,

Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped. Ariel being another name for Jerusalem. This passage has spoken of Jerusalem and their hypocrisy, that they have sought the

Lord externally, but not internally. They worship God with their actions, but not with their heart.

Their hearts are far from him. And so God is displeased with this worship of him, because they have trusted in others rather than truly trusting in him.

He is displeased with their worship. And he has spoken great things of judgment against them.

He said, He's spoken a very stark word against his people, against Jerusalem, for their sin.

But now, in this passage, he speaks words of hope. And he speaks of how he will save the people with such a great salvation.

Not only will it restore them from the dust, but instead, he will cast their enemies to the dust, and the people will remember their affliction as though it were only a dream.

So beginning here in verse 5, But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff.

So you see that contrast here. He just talked about how his own people would be crushed down into the dust.

And now he says that his foes will be like the dust. So whereas he afflicts his own people, crushing them into the dust, he afflicts his enemies in a greater way.

And this is something that has come out multiple times in Isaiah. Were you afflicted in the way that your enemies were afflicted?

The answer is no. God afflicts the enemies worse. God afflicts the enemies so that they are not just in the dust, but they become the dust itself.

Small, fine dust that flits away as though it were nothing. Speaks to them as chaff, passing chaff.

That's another frequent image in scripture. The husks that cover grain. The grain is beaten so that the chaff and the grain is separated.

And the chaff is just this light stuff that burns easily, that flies away easily.

This is what the enemies will be like. Now, who are these enemies?

A fairly common interpretation of this, if you look through different commentators, a fairly common one is that this actually speaks of Egypt.

Because the word for foe here is not, it doesn't actually say enemy or foe, it just talks about the strangers.

And a lot of people think, well, this is probably talking about the strangers, the Egyptians that the people have trusted in.

But given that it talks in verse 7 about the multitude of nations that fight against Ariel, it seems to make sense here not to talk about the allies that Israels consider making, but rather that it speaks of the ones that are actually assaulting them.

That it speaks here of the nation of Assyria. But, additionally, as we look to the

New Testament, we see the way that it interprets Isaiah as not merely speaking of the trials that they were going through then, of being happy to look at chapters like Isaiah 7 and 8, which speaks of God's great salvation from the nation of Syria, as referring to God's salvation that is provided through the virgin birth.

As we see that the New Testament has consistently interpreted these passages this way, it's right to see this as also having a reference to our salvation, to the salvation that is accomplished in Jesus' crisis.

He defeats our enemies on the cross. The enemy is defeated in a minute.

One day, it looks like Satan has the upper hand. Three days later, Jesus rises from the dead, and in a moment, the enemy is defeated.

If you consider the way we are born again, in a moment, our enemies are defeated.

And on that last day, when Jesus returns, it will be in a moment, the enemy is defeated.

Because this is the power of God. This is his salvation. His salvation is one that is swift.

It is swift. It is something that those who are not looking with eyes of faith have a difficult time anticipating, because they don't see the salvation coming.

Salvation is not something gradual, where you can sort of anticipate it, like a progress loading bar that you can just watch.

Rather, it is something that you must wait and trust the Lord, trust what he says in his word, and then in an instant, he will do what he has said.

This is a call for us to have confidence in what God has said, that he will deliver us from the oppression of this life, that he will deliver us from persecution, from anything, from any of his enemies that stand against us, from the work of Satan and his demons.

These are all things that God will save us from. He already has, by his work on the cross, he has accomplished that victory.

But then moreover, we will be delivered from this world. Jesus Christ will return.

He will save his people. We will dwell with him forever, and we must trust that will happen, even if we don't see it gradually taking place in our own life, even if the persecution remains constant.

And continuing to describe not only the swiftness, but the power of his salvation,

Isaiah speaks of what the Lord will do in verse 6. You will be visited by the

Lord of hosts with thunder and with earthquake and great noise, with whirlwind and tempest and the flame of a devouring fire.

Now, if you are a student of the Bible, I'm hoping that these images that you see here will remind you of something.

Thunder, earthquake, great noise, tempest, flame of fire. I believe whirlwind is the only one here that's not mentioned in Exodus 19 and 20, speaking of what the

Lord did at Mount Sinai. These are all pictures that the Bible uses occasionally to speak of what happened at Mount Sinai, where God came down and delivered his law.

Now, why is it appropriate to associate that event at Sinai with this event of salvation?

On what basis does God save? On what basis does he destroy the enemies of his people and deliver his people from them?

It is on the basis of his law. On the basis of God's law, those who have sinned against his law deserve death.

They deserve judgment. And so God makes his judgment known in powerful ways.

On Mount Sinai, it was displayed with fire, with tempest, with earthquake, with a great noise.

This is just the sound of a trumpet blaring. God's salvation is powerful.

Do not doubt the salvation of God. Do not doubt the power of God to save. So it is on this basis, verses 5 and 6, speaking of the swiftness and the power of God in salvation, that he then describes how the affliction will be removed.

It will be removed as a dream. And there's something to notice here. There's something to see in that when it says, you will be visited by the

Lord of hosts, this is kind of an ominous thing to say, because he's saying you'll be visited, there'll be fire, there'll be earthquake, etc.

Who is being saved here? Who is being destroyed? If you're reading this for the first time, you might think, oh no,

I'm going to be visited with thunder and with earthquake, etc. This could be a word of judgment on me.

Israel deserved it. God has just spoken of the judgment that's coming for them, of how he's going to correct his people.

But then it turns around and it is applied to the enemies of God. It is applied to the nations that come against God's people.

And his salvation is so powerful that the affliction his people face will be as a dream. The multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel, remember that's another name for Jerusalem, what

I explained last week is that Ariel is another word for altar. And so it is speaking of God's people as being the place where his worship is conducted.

He talked about how he was displeased with his worship, but in this passage he's going to speak of how he's going to save Zion, this place of his worship.

And the multitude of the nations that fight against Ariel, all that fight against her and her stronghold and distress her, shall be like a dream, like a vision of the night.

This is God's wondrous work of salvation. So much so that affliction, the affliction of this life, will be as a dream.

The persecution of enemies will be as a dream. Now there are several things

I think that we should think of when we think of the salvation being as a dream. In fact, there are four in particular that I've picked out that I'd like us to consider.

And the first is that a dream is illusory, right? A dream is a bit of an illusion.

Now let me explain to you with an analogy to the way a lot of people think about life. A lot of people don't believe that there is a

God. They believe in the things that scientific conclusions have told them.

That, for example, the sun will die out and there will be a heat death in the universe.

Something that's very interesting about the atheistic worldview that believes this way. So what purpose is there in anything that doesn't have a continued existence?

If something that I do here has effects here and now, but does not have any effect on the future, because if the future everything dies off and it just becomes one big blob of energy -less mass, if that's the case, why does anything in this life matter?

If any effects of it are wiped away, why does it matter at all? It's purposeless.

And if you talk to some of the more consistent atheists, they will acknowledge it's purposeless. Many will just say, oh, well, you know, there's purpose here and now.

But purpose here and now that's taken away later, all that purpose is just an illusion.

Now consider what it's speaking of here when it's talking about the enemies. If you think of enemies and particularly their threats as being an illusion, what does that say for us?

What does that say for us as we consider the shame we experience in this life as being an illusion, the threats that we are dealt in this life as being an illusion?

If they will all be wiped away as though they never were, are they to be feared? There is nothing to be feared with the threat of enemies.

As Jesus says, do not fear man who can destroy the body but cannot destroy the soul.

He has no power to kill body and soul in hell. Only the Lord does. Only the

Lord has that power. Only he is to be feared. The threats that we experience in this life are merely an illusion.

They feel very real. It feels like mankind has so much power to harm us, but the power man has is very little.

All he can hurt, harm, is our body here and now. When we face temptations, things being taken away from us, when we're deciding whether or not we're going to serve the

Lord or engage in self -denial and resist temptation in a way that our flesh does not enjoy, we should not be thinking about our experience here and now as being so important, as being such a great thing to be defended.

Rather, we should recognize that one day this will all be just as an illusion. It will all be just as a dream, as a vision of the night.

So there's no reason to fear threat of persecution. There's no reason to fear temptation in a way that says, oh,

I must give in to this temptation or else I won't be able to bear it. No, it is not the case.

These things will all—these things will all be taken away one day. Now, secondly,

I'd like us to consider just how swift God's salvation is, that it—that is something that happens in an instant, as I was speaking of a second ago.

You know, a dream, when a dream is removed, it's gone. It's just like that.

You—one minute, you might be having a nightmare. You might be having the worst experience of your life. And then as you wake up, it's gone.

It's no more. There's no, you know, gradual rise into consciousness usually.

There's no gradual experience as you approach waking up.

Rather, it's something that happens in an instant. As I said, this is how our salvation was accomplished.

This is how it was accomplished on the cross. This is how it's accomplished in our own life. This is how it will be accomplished when

Jesus Christ returns. And he has fixed a day—the Lord has fixed a day on which

Christ will return. But he has not made that date known to us. And there is a reason for that.

That reason is that we should set our sight on him and not trust in ourself, but rather trust in him.

That we, being tested in this way, would not—would not carry on being lax in our life here and now, operating under this—under this notion of a calendar that says, okay,

I can ask this way now because Christ will return then. And then as it gets closer, then I'll start worrying about him coming back.

No, he has set it up in such a way that we must ever trust him. We must trust him at every moment because there's no gradual process to show us that the

Lord is coming. There are certainly signs that God has given us, but they are signs that are understood by faith, not merely by sight.

All right, he has described what will happen in this world as we await for him. But these are things that are known by sight.

You know, the world can still look at us and it can laugh that we would wait on someone who hasn't returned for all this time.

But we, who have eyes of faith, know that the Lord will return. And when he returns, it will be as an instant.

It will be in just a brief moment. And as such, we should have encouragement.

We should not grow weary as we do not see persecution being taken away from us on the timeline that we would like, but rather we should trust the

Lord. Next, I'd like us to consider that what this means that it will be like a dream is that it's non -traumatic.

You know, this world, the evils that we experience here, the suffering that we experience here, they may cause you trauma in this life.

You know, people who go off to war often come back with PTSD, with post -traumatic stress disorder.

Yet, this is not what heaven will be like. This is not what existence with Jesus Christ will be like forever.

Rather, it will be non -traumatic because his salvation is a powerful one that takes away all that trauma.

That takes it away so that we do not have a continued trauma from this life so that we're constantly afflicted by the things we have experienced here and now.

And this sets us up for the last one because the last one is a dream is still memorable. It's still something that can be remembered.

Now, I know you don't remember all your dreams, but the idea here is it will be something that is remembered.

A lot of people think, well, maybe I just won't remember this because it's too traumatic. Well, if the trauma is taken away, you are free to remember everything that happens in this life.

Now, why would you—why would you remember these things? Because this is precisely why

God has taken us through this world. Psalm 77. Psalm 77 verse 11 says,

I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work and meditate on your mighty deeds.

God has created this world. God has placed us through trials and tests, etc.

Not so that they would not be remembered, but so that, just as was being preached through this morning, as the

Lord gives us what we need to—to carry us through every situation when we are not able to save ourselves, so that we will remember this.

We will remember the Lord's activity upon all these cases so that we will, as the psalmist says in Psalm 77, remember all the work of the

Lord. Now, if you think of the most traumatic, the most evil event in human history, what might that be?

It's the cross of Jesus Christ. It's where men accused Jesus Christ of something he did not do, where they assaulted him, where they hung him on a cross under false accusations.

And will this be forgotten? It will not be forgotten. It will be remembered with all vibrancy.

And I would—I would say that the Christian has all the reason to suspect that the things that we experience here in this life, you know, your childhood, your years coming into adulthood, etc.,

even if you have a fading memory of them now, I believe we have every reason to suspect God will give us clear memories of these things in our glorified bodies.

That we would be able to appreciate everything that God has saved us through. He has not done the marvelous works he has done to be forgotten.

He has done these marvelous works that we might remember them and praise his name. And so God's work in saving us out of affliction so that it will be as a dream is not so that it will be forgotten, but rather so that it will be remembered in a non -traumatic way that we might praise him forever.

It's a—it's a wonderful and glorious hope that we will be able to praise him in this way, knowing everything that he has brought us through and yet not being traumatized by any of it.

And so Isaiah continues on here, but he flips the dream around.

Listen to this. As when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he is eating, and awakes with his hunger not satisfied.

Or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he is drinking, and awakes faint with his thirst not quenched.

So shall the multitudes of all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion. So in verse 7, what was the dream?

The dream was the enemy. The dream was the affliction. In verse 8, what is the dream?

Who is the hungry man that's eating and then doesn't have anything? Who is the thirsty man that's—that's drinking and doesn't have anything?

Those are the enemy nations who think that they have the victory. They think that they have the upper hand, but it's all an illusion.

It doesn't really exist, and it will be taken away, and then it will be nothing. This is precisely what happens to Assyria swiftly on the night that they're about ready to attack

Jerusalem. We'll read about this later in Isaiah. The angel of the Lord comes down and destroys 185 ,000 of their troops so that just like that, they turn into dust and flit away.

And that is the power of the salvation of the Lord. And that is the threat to those who do not have the

Lord Jesus Christ by which they might be saved. You know, for those who do have him, this affliction is like a dream.

For those who don't have him, your comfortable state in this world, the status you think you have, that will be as a dream, so it will be nothing.

Any pleasures that you pursue in this life, any status that you pursue in this life, it will all be taken away in an instant, and it won't be remembered fondly.

It will just be as a dream, as though it were nothing. If you have not trusted in Jesus Christ, you must trust in him, or else what you have here, the things that you think you have, they are all just a dream.

They will be taken away. The Lord gives his promise that he protects

Mount Zion against those who, he protects his people from those who fight against her.

He protects his Mount Zion. Now Mount Zion is important because this is the place where the

Lord is worshipped, this is the place where the temple is built, and he has expressed his displeasure in his worship.

But now he turns around and says he will protect the place of his worship. How is that accomplished?

The New Testament makes it clear, Jesus says, those who worship God must worship him in spirit and in truth.

It's not on this mountain, it's not on that mountain. Rather, the temple has been destroyed. That temple has been destroyed.

There's a new temple that has been erected. Christ, as he's risen from the dead, is that temple. And as he has sent the

Holy Spirit to live in us, we are the temple of God whereby we might dwell him in spirit and truth.

No more to go aside from the worship of God as the people of Israel did, that old covenant not having the power to change their hearts, but rather being part of a new covenant,

God has changed us that we might continue in true worship being his temple.

And consider, I'm going to sound like a broken record going here again, but consider what

Hebrews 12 says in light of what we read about thunder and earthquake and great noise and tempest and flame and Mount Zion.

Consider this contrast between Sinai and Zion. Hebrews 12, 18 says,

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and tempest, the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words may the hearers beg that no further message be spoken to them.

This is speaking of Sinai. For they could not endure the order that was given. If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.

Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear. But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living

God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to innumerable angels and festal gathering and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to God, the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

You see this promise of darkness and tempest and earthquake and fire.

These are the things that happen to those who come to God on the basis of his law. But for those of us who come on the basis of his mercy that has been provided for in Jesus Christ, we have an assurance that we have come to Mount Zion and not to that place where the thunder and the fire come against God's enemies.

It is through Jesus Christ that we have a Zion that is protected.

It is through him that all that affliction, all that hardship of this life, all the persecution will be merely as a dream.

Now I'd like to ask you, have you ever heard of what's known as lucid dreaming?

Lucid dreaming is where you're dreaming and you're aware that you are dreaming. Now I know a lot of people who have,

I have some friends who have gotten really fascinated by this and really pursued lucid dreaming.

You know, they'll do things like flip light switches on and off because they're testing whether or not the light immediately turns on and off to see whether or not they're in a dream.

You know, they really want to be able to lucid dream so that they can, you know, live in a world without fear and do all kinds of things, jump off of buildings, you know, fly around.

Well, right now, you have the opportunity to lucid dream. You have the opportunity to recognize that this world you are living in, while it is very real, and I don't mean to denigrate the reality of it at all, will one day be as though it were a dream.

And you have the opportunity to approach life with such courage and such bravery, knowing that all these things will be taken away.

Through Jesus Christ, you have that opportunity right now to approach the world in this way.

So don't pass it up. Don't be overwhelmed by the threats of the enemy, by the shame that you experience in this life.

Recognize that one day it will be all as a dream and as such, you can approach this world with perfect courage, knowing that you have eternal life provided for in Jesus Christ, our

Lord. Let's go to him in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this great promise of a great salvation so that the trauma we experience in this world will be taken away, so that, though this world is hard, the salvation that we will have in your

Son on that day will be something that is just so wonderful to experience.

And we thank you that we can experience that eternal life even now. God, I pray that we would walk in such a way that we are ready day by day for the return of your

Son, and that we would walk with great courage, knowing that the afflictions of this world will be taken away in a moment.